Crist Delivers McCain's Message in Florida Radio Ad

By Ed O'Keefe
Gov. Charlie Crist (R-Fla.) seizes on the McCain campaign "Joe the Plumber/Spread the Wealth Around" talking points in a new campaign radio commercial airing in the Sunshine State.

With audio quality that sounds similar to those robocalls placed by both campaigns, Crist says that McCain "will lower your taxes. He will stop wasteful government spending. And John McCain knows that people don't want to 'spread the wealth.' He knows that Congress should let you keep more of your money, and not take it away. Thank you very much."

The announcer continues: "Your savings, your job and your financial security are under siege. Congressional liberals will make it worse. Congressional liberals plan nearly a trillion dollars in new government spending. To pay for it, Congressional liberals promise higher taxes on American families making over $42,000 a year. Barack Obama and Congressional liberals call it spreading the wealth around, we call it higher taxes, bigger government. Either way, it will cost you. Stop 'em before they make it worse."

The ad repeats arguments the McCain camp and RNC have delivered in recent weeks, most of them disputed by the Obama campaign and others.

As Dan Balz noted today, the latest polling suggests Obama leads McCain in Florida by only 5 points, a lead much smaller than in other battleground states. So at this point, the more McCain can use the popular governor to help convince undecided Floridians, the better for his campaign.

A wide range of sweeping changes to the 401(k) system were proposed Tuesday at a hearing on how the market crisis has devastated retirement savings plans.
Chief among them was eliminating $80 billion in tax savings for people enrolled in 401(k) retirement savings plans.

This was suggested by the chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor.

“With respect to the 401(k), it appears to be a plan that is not really well-devised for the changes in the market,” Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., said.

“We’ve invested $80 billion into subsidizing this activity,” he said, referring to tax breaks allowed for 401(k) contributions and savings.

With savings rates going down, “what do we have to start to think about in Congress of whether or not we want to continue and invest that $80 billion for a policy that is not generating what we … say it should?” Mr. Miller said.

Congress should let workers trade their 401(k) assets for guaranteed retirement accounts made up of government bonds, suggested Teresa Ghilarducci, an economics professor at The New School for Social Research in New York.

When workers collected Social Security, the guaranteed retirement account would pay an inflation-adjusted annuity under her plan.

“The way the government now encourages 401(k) plans is to spend $80 billion in tax breaks,” which goes to the highest-income earners, Ms. Ghilarducci said.

That simply results in transferring money from taxed savings accounts to untaxed accounts, she said.

“If we implement automatic [individual retirement accounts] or if we expand the 401(k) system, all we’re doing is adding to this inefficiency,” Ms. Ghilarducci said.

Rep. Robert Andrews, D-N.J., raised the issue of which investment advisers are allowed to offer workers investment advice.

The Department of Labor is considering “loopholes” that would allow advisers to offer “conflicted investment advice if the advisers work for subsidiaries of financial services companies that sell the investments,” he said.

With American workers facing $2 trillion in losses from retirement plans over the past year and Democrats expected to gain seats in the House and the Senate, actions being contemplated by the committee are an important harbinger of what could come out of Congress next year.

(Wonder if a Democratic Congress and White House could get this done? Can't do much about the former, But Can about the latter. Same plan was pushed through in Argentina!)

Charlie Crist is a very good governor who just won't come out of the closet.
However his flip-flop on oil drilling is a problem that we here in Florida have to deal with.
Millions of gallons of oil washed up on the beaches and estuaries of Texas and Louisiana after the last hurricane but got little coverage in the media.

The fact is Obama's tax plan is just a return to the PROVEN system
Bill Clinton used during the prosperous years of his term in office.
Bill Clinton left office with huge budget surpluses.

McCain's tax plan is just an extension of the PROVEN failure of the Bush tax system of rewarding the wealthy and corporations at the expense of the middle class. The middle class is now redistributing their wealth to bail out banks.

People like to argue theory and statistics but it's as simple as this: Are you better off now then you were eight years ago?

they think if they repeat the lie enough, someone will believe it. McCain said the Bush cuts should have gone to the middle class, not the rich. Obama proposes exactly the same thing by letting the Bush cuts expire and giving the middle class a break. When McCain proposes it, it's taking money from the lazy rich and giving it the the hardworking middle class. When Obama proposes exactly the same thing, it's taking money from the hardworking folks and giving it to the lazy poor as welfare, and is socialism (with a little racism thrown in - who do you think McCain's audience thinks gets "welfare?") Same cuts, same people, just different spin. it's a crock. McCain just hopes his audience doesn't know any math, and doesn't realize they don't make 250K.

Isn't McCain's health care proposal a "spread the wealth" plan? He wants to tax those who receive health care through their employers and use those funds to provide tax credits to those without health insurance so they can purchase health coverage on their own. That sure sounds like redistribution of wealth to me. And, that makes it a "spread the wealth" idea.

Snake a toilet with a common garden hose
Remove a bathtub and install a shower
Install a Waterheater and piping
Remove trapped food from your dishwasher
Repair a septic tank
Replace a Kitchen Sink
Back-Siphion a drain
Replace a broken cistern
Redirect and repair a down pipe
Re-regulate your pressure system

...all ways to save we Americans from paying a $250,000 dollar a year plumber from coming to your house..

And did I mention that McCaint was going to give Joe Wurzelbacker the Unlicenced Plumber a tax credit for his commercials???

All you neo-con bloggers just can't get a break these days.

Their candidate lost the last and final presidential debate, receiving a sound thumping from Obama, but the embarrassment doesn't stop there.

It turns out the new right wing poster child is just another right wing faux controversy, as transparent as the rest of the lies they're telling these days.

Some interesting facts (which still need to be verified) about Joe the Plumber are starting to surface:

Joe the Plumber isn't registered to vote.

Joe the Plumber doesn't make $250,000. Not only will Joe the Plumber not see his taxes rise under the Obama tax plan, he'll get a tax cut.

Joe the Plumber's Dad is a big-time Republican donor.

Joe the Plumber isn't licensed. He says he doesn't need a license since he works for a residential plumbing contractor who is licensed.

So when Joe was talking this morning about the new jobs that he hopes come in a result of his new found celebrity status, he was talking about working without a license?

And Joe "freelances", as many tradespeople do, and perhaps even gets paid under the table.

Hmmmmmm...can anyone say "AUDIT"

Since he doesn't have a license, it doesn't sound like he's all that serious about establishing his own business.

McCaint in last night's debate: "Joe, you're rich, congratulations!" McCaint complains that Obama wants to raise the taxes for Joe the Plumber, but Joe the Plumber makes far less than the $250,000 that would put him in a higher tax bracket under the Obama plan.

Joe the Plumber will actually get a tax cut under Obama's plan.

............Priceless!

So you're not rich yet, Joe, but you'll be doing a lot better under Obama's tax plan than you will under McCaint's...

And Joe the Plumber won't be fined for Health Care as McCaint lied stated in that FINAL debate after all.

When McCaint was railing about how unfair Obama's tax plan was to "Joe the Plumber" it was just more Republican crapola.

What a surprise.

Thanks but no thanks to Joe and the lies that take America nowhere.....

Crude oil prices rise and gasoline prices quickly follow suit. But when the price of crude drops, gas prices seldom seem to fall in any like proportion. As with gas and oil, so with liberal Big Media and the presidential polls.

Democrat Barack Obama, long measuring for White House drapes, was elevated to something exceeding messiah status among the major newspapers and TV networks when polls suggested his lead over Republican John McCain had surged into the political ionosphere.

That double-digit lead was all the confirmation required that the election essentially was over. But a funny thing happened along the route to King Obama's coronation: More recent polls have suggested the race has tightened; some even point to a statistical dead heat.

story continues below

But those numbers certainly haven't received the same coverage as ones that suggested a President Obama was a foregone conclusion. Even Sen. Obama now is worrying about the risk of a "carried away" media being the precursor to his being "spanked" on Nov. 4.

Voters supposedly elect presidents. But this election cycle, it seems Big Media and its liberal enablers are hellbent on taking over that function. Just as that passenger-side mirror cautions how objects are closer than they appear, Sen. McCain is closer to Obama than Big Media are reflecting.

And such a distortion isn't very becoming of one of the great pillars of such a grand republic.

Obama is a socialist, the wealth spreader. Do you want to stand in a queue for potatoes, bread and margarine, if you lucky? Vote Obama. Do you want to get a free mattress from Washington, DC? Vote Obama. Do you want to get $50 check from Washington, DC? Vote Obama. Do you want … [fill in blank space] from Washington, DC? Vote Obama.

Think America before you vote, Bush was elected twice by American people who was chanted by Media. Think Experience,Learning,Vision,Strategy before voting. Think Mccain who ran against George Bush, realize people of America, he always worked hard for America he is most reliable Senator.
Media Learn from your shameful deeds dont influence Voters